Movies like Dear Kate, (2024)
The best movies like Dear Kate, (2024) are Honey Boy (2019), Out of the Blue (1981) and Ironweed (1987). If Dear Kate, hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedPalmer (2021)8.1/10 from 2,026 votes
- NewestThe Whisper Man (2026)Released 2026
Honey Boy (2019)
The story of a child star attempting to mend his relationship with his law-breaking, alcohol-abusing father over the course of a decade, loosely based on Shia LaBeouf’s life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOut of the Blue (1981)
A young girl whose father is an ex-convict and whose mother is a junkie finds it difficult to conform and tries to find comfort in a quirky combination of Elvis and the punk scene.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIronweed (1987)
An alcoholic drifter spends Halloween in his hometown of Albany, New York after returning there for the first time in decades.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHellion (2014)
When motocross and heavy metal obsessed, 13-year-old Jacob's delinquent behavior forces CPS to place his little brother Wes with his aunt, Jacob and his emotionally absent father must finally take responsibility for their actions and each other in order to bring Wes home.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisKen Park (2003)
Teen skater Ken Park (nicknamed Krap Nek; his name spelled and pronounced backward) kills himself at a Visalia skate park; his death bookends the lives of four other young people who knew him: Shawn, the most conventional; Tate brims with psychotic rage; Claude is habitually harassed by his brutish father and coddled, rather uncomfortably, by his enormously pregnant mother; and Peaches looks after her devoutly religious father, but yearns for freedom. They're all rather tight, or so they claim.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe True Adventures of Wolfboy (2019)
Follows a young boy who runs away from home in the search of his estranged mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete (2013)
Coming of age story about two inner city youths, who are left to fend for themselves over the summer after their mothers are taken away by the authorities.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBeautiful Boy (2018)
After he and his first wife separate, journalist David Sheff struggles to help their teenage son, who goes from experimenting with drugs to becoming devastatingly addicted to methamphetamine.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPalmer (2021)
After 12 years in prison, former high school football star Eddie Palmer returns home to put his life back together—and forms an unlikely bond with Sam, an outcast boy from a troubled home. But Eddie's past threatens to ruin his new life and family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisTest (2018)
Kurt Longson tries to avenge his daughters death. To succeed he has to battle with his conscience and morality to realize true love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBunraku (2010)
In a world with no guns, a mysterious drifter, a bartender and a young samurai plot revenge against a ruthless leader and his army of thugs, headed by nine diverse and deadly assassins.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Crossing Guard (1995)
Unable to move on from the loss of his daughter, Freddy, now a shell of the person he was before, swears to kill the man responsible for her death.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSweet Girl (2021)
A man vows to bring justice to those responsible for his wife's death while protecting the only family he has left, his daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSmall Engine Repair (2021)
The seemingly casual reunion of three old friends at an out-of-the-way repair shop masks a hidden agenda fuelled by the arrival of a privileged young yuppie.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBen Is Back (2018)
19-year-old Ben Burns unexpectedly returns home to his family's suburban home on Christmas Eve morning. Ben's mother, Holly, is relieved and welcoming but wary of her son staying clean. Over a turbulent 24 hours, new truths are revealed, and a mother's undying love for her son is tested as she does everything in her power to keep him safe.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Deep End of the Ocean (1999)
A three-year-old boy disappears during his mother's high school reunion. Nine years later, by chance, he turns up in the town in which the family has just relocated.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEye for an Eye (1996)
It's fire and brimstone time as grieving mother Karen McCann takes justice into her own hands when a kangaroo court in Los Angeles fails to convict Robert Doob, the monster who raped and murdered her 17-year-old daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this21 Grams (2003)
Paul Rivers, an ailing mathematician lovelessly married to an English émigré; Christina Peck, an upper-middle-class suburban housewife and mother of two girls; and Jack Jordan, a born-again ex-con, are brought together by a terrible accident that changes their lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Whisper Man (2026)
When his young son vanishes, a widower enlists help from his estranged father, a retired detective who put away the serial killer now linked to the case.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThis Boy's Life (1993)
When a son and mother move to Seattle in hopes for a better life, the mother meets a seemingly polite man. Things go south when the man turns out to be abusive, endangering their lives. As the mother struggles to maintain hope in an impossible situation, the son has plans to escape.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIn This Very Moment (2003)
This is the story of Sylvia, who loses her stepchildren on a shopping trip in Poland. For fear of losing her husband's love too, she is unable to tell him what has happened and returns home, pretending everything is fine. When he realizes that his children are missing, the father begins a desperate search. He is ready to give up anything in order to find them. Sylvia supports him in any way; she tries to comfort him and takes care of his hope's vulnerable flame. For the first time he really needs her. While the children are trying their best to get home, the police fail in detecting their whereabouts. When a very vague trace leads to Poland, the parents hit the road to find the children on their own.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Wild Seed (1965)
A 17-year-old girl runs away from her east coast home, going west to Los Angeles to meet her biological father. She has learned from letters her mother kept that he was tragically separated from her before the girl's birth. On the road, she is protected and befriended by an independent-minded young drifter who helps her on her journey.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Wait (2025)
A future father struggles with the ghosts of his past as he tries to reconnect with his absent father, unleashing disturbing nightmares that force him to confront his insecurities about parenthood.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Home Without Walls (2025)
While staying with her mother for the summer, a teenage girl must adjust to the sudden arrival of mom's new boyfriend and his daughter.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
My Father and My Son (2005)
A left-wing journalist whose wife died while giving birth to his son during a military coup returns to his family's farm. Estranged from his father for turning his back on the family and wasting his life with political activism instead, he tries to reconnect with him so that his son will have a place to live as his health is deteriorating due to the extensive torture he had to endure.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWithnail & I (1987)
Two out-of-work actors -- the anxious, luckless Marwood and his acerbic, alcoholic friend, Withnail -- spend their days drifting between their squalid flat, the unemployment office and the pub. When they take a holiday "by mistake" at the country house of Withnail's flamboyantly gay uncle, Monty, they encounter the unpleasant side of the English countryside: tedium, terrifying locals and torrential rain.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAnything For A Dream (2026)
Stuck in a decollate life and a dead marriage a father goes to any lengths to continue to dream a life for his daughter and himself
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Kaiyethum Doorath (2002)
Sushma's parents get her engaged to Kishore. After knowing about her parents' plan to get divorced after her marriage, Sushma devises a plan to prevent it.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Keane (2004)
William Keane is barely able to cope. It has been six months since his six-year-old daughter was abducted from New York City’s Port Authority Bus Terminal while traveling with him. Repeatedly drawn to the site of the abduction, Keane wanders the bus station, compulsively replaying the events of that fateful day, as if hoping to change the outcome.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVermilion and Green (1937)
A businessman’s daughter falls in love with one of her father’s employees.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Dear Kate,?
The closest matches to Dear Kate, are Honey Boy (2019), Out of the Blue (1981) and Ironweed (1987). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Dear Kate,?
Start with Honey Boy (2019), the closest match to Dear Kate,.
What is the highest-rated movie like Dear Kate,?
Palmer (2021), rated 8.1/10 by 2,026 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Dear Kate,?
The Whisper Man (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Dear Kate,?
Yes: Honey Boy (2019), Out of the Blue (1981) and Ironweed (1987).
How are movies similar to Dear Kate, chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Dear Kate,, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.